Frank Schaeffer Quotes

The Republican base is now made up of religious and neoconservative ideologues, and the uneducated white underclass with a token person of color or two up front on TV to obscure the all-white, all reactionary all backward — there-is-no-global-warming — rube reality. Actual conservatives, let alone the educated classes, have long since fled.

North Korea and evangelical empires have the same principle of leadership: nepotism to the nth degree. You may not get the call, but you inherit the mailing list.

We’re living in an acquisitive capitalist society that is fundamentally anti-family and fundamentally uncomfortable with just enjoying being human. We’d rather shop than live, acquire than love and stare into a screen than hold each other.

Those of us raised in the Christian tradition need to choose to either see God in Jesus or to continue to let the Bible define God. Our tradition says that Jesus is God. Maybe we should act as if we think he is instead of worshipping a book. Maybe we should be brave enough to admit that we are compelled to either become blinded ideologues or we need to forthrightly pick and choose what we follow in the Bible. Most Christians do that anyway, many just don’t admit it.

There were three kinds of evangelical leaders: The dumb or idealistic ones who really believed. The out-and-out charlatans. And the smart ones who still believed – sort of – but knew that the evangelical world was sh*t, but who couldn't figure out any way to earn as good a living anywhere else.

People are not as one-dimensional as the stories about them.

Take empathy, something added to human nature very recently and moving as we speak. Less than 300 years ago, Christians were enjoying watching a bear and dogs fight in a pit, racing Jews like horses, and had a life expectancy of less than 50 years. Today there are vegans who won't kill a fly, and yet wars too.

Scientists and theologians can’t offer better than circular arguments, because there are no other kinds of arguments. Bible believers quote the Bible, and scientists quote other scientists. How do either scientists or theologians answer this question about the accuracy of their conclusions: “In reference to what?

We don't just change our minds, we change the way we see things. That's one reason I'm a better grandfather than I was a father.

There is nothing more profane than the image of an atheist with tears in his eyes conducting the glory and passion of Handel's Messiah.

When I was a child, my parents taught a literal creation. By the time I was in my 20s they were accommodating evolution. In other words, less creed, more roll with changing ways of seeing. Maybe adapting is a better way to see this.

All we know about Jesus is what someone else wrote down... so really one should say, "Here is what someone wrote down that they said Jesus said..." this isn't uncertainty on purpose, just plain speaking.

Evangelical Christians are not sincere. It is all about making money.

Of course as soon as I say something or write it that sounds like I believe it, and really I'm never entirely sure.

I do think evangelicals have been under attack.

The secular humanist, although he would never dream of committing the social faux pas of calling a black man a negro, feels perfectly free to castigate Christians and their leaders in any way he likes.

You Republicans are the arsonists who burned down our national home. Now you have the nerve to criticize the 'architect' America just hired - President Obama - to rebuild from the ashes.

We are not evolved but evolving.

Laws of nature don't know they are "fixed." That's a human pattern seeking description that comes out of our need to survive. It isn't an objective description of anything.

I think that the Democratic Party has been ill served by identity politics. I think that ironically evangelicals have now bought into the same mistake. They have discovered allies in the white supremacist movement. I think this is a heavy price to pay and will in the end accelerate the departure from religion by young people.

I'm less certain now but kinder.

We are always in transition.

We have no outside point of view. We are nature too.

My problem with all forms of fundamentalism is that the position is fixed. This is like talking about a fixed position as seen from a moving jet: it's disappearing over the horizon with or without your permission.

Donald Trump is not a very bright or nice man. Bad combination.

I don't think anyone sees truth for a simple reason: we aren't static.

Since science is fashionable today, it allows its fraternity to propose cloddish monstrosities as a solution to man's problems in many fields. Fashion rules and, anyway, who but the experts can even dare to speak up?

Beliefs should be like the rest of life, and real life isn't rules but learning and adaption.

Positions on politics and religion are labels. Inside I'm still me, just older and tired.

Science "says" nothing. People say things and knowledge changes.

I just think the way (for instance) evangelicals talk about God or Jesus, as in "Jesus says" or "the Bible says" points up a lack of honesty.

The way even movements change is stunning: Chinese communist capitalists? Evangelicals deciding to be nice to gay people?

I think that unlike W Bush who was an actual evangelical and sincerely so (my family knew the Bush family), of course Trump will disappoint when it comes to evangelicals. I'm not talking about personal behavior but policy.